Cycle Breaker and Change Maker | Introduction to the invisibility of abuse - things are not always what they seem

Todays episode is an Introduction to the invisibility of abuse.  You may be wondering what happened in my household and how the abuse I endured or anyone endures, can go unseen.

Most of us are familiar with the age-old adage - things are not always what they seem.  In today's world we are surrounded by social media.  For the most part, users control the way the world sees them and only share positive heavily filtered (literally and figuratively) views of their life on social media.  Let's go back about 40 years ago, when social media did not exist.  There were no cell phones, there was no internet or household computer then.  Yet even then, things were not always what they seemed and could be filtered.  This is the thing about human nature, most people will only divulge what will make them safe in a crowd and part of this is because of our primal need to fit in in order to keep us safe from threats.   Our primitive brain is hardwired to keep us safe, so if presenting a life that is truthful could lead to rejection which in turn equates to the risk of dying due to predators or the outside elements, of course people are not  incentivised to share the harder parts of life easily.    These events can remain bottled up, never to be seen by the light of day until years pass and it bubbles over.  This is exactly what happened to me.

Since starting this podcast I have had countless people say to me that they had no idea what I was going through, even when I was going through it.  Their impression of my childhood was completely the opposite of what it truly was.  They have shared that this podcast has been eye opening and hard to hear as someone that knew me during the time I was going through what I did.  This has been said to me by both close family members and friends.  I completely believe what they are saying, because, things are not always what they seem.

I have a picture of me as a little girl which you can find on my social media accounts.  In this picture I would say people would comment that I look happy and healthy,  I even look like my basic needs are being met.  The thing is though, all of this could not be further from the truth.